Just Around the Corner

by Gilda O'Neill

  ‘Eh?’ Katie looked at Pat, then at Nora, then at Pat again.

  ‘I’ve decided it’s time I settled down. I know it won’t be able to happen for a year or two yet. I’ve gotta lot of saving to do. But it’s what I want and no one’s gonna stop me. I’m going over there this morning to ask her.’

  ‘Yer right about needing a few quid if yer gonna get hitched.’ Pat was unable to resist the chance of rubbing it in that he’d been right all along. ‘It’s lucky yer never chucked yer job in after all then, ain’t it?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about that,’ said Danny grimly. ‘And I realise Joe Palmer’s been good to me. Put up with a load of old lip from me and all. I should be more grateful.’ He paused, staring down at the table. ‘I mean to. make it up to him.’

  Pat rubbed his hands together in satisfaction. ‘He’s come to his senses at last. Thank Gawd for that.’

  ‘Not now, Pat,’ breathed Katie, her eyes shining with tears. ‘This is too happy a time to row.’

  ‘So yer don’t mind then?’ Danny asked quietly.

  ‘Mind?’ Katie rushed to her son’s side and wrapped her arms tightly around him. ‘How could I mind? I’m bloody ecstatic!’

  Timmy and Michael burst into giggles at their mum using ‘language’.

  ‘A wedding,’ Katie went on, apparently not caring that her two youngest were now repeating ‘bloody ecstatic, bloody ecstatic’ over and over again. ‘And not only to a nice Catholic girl from a lovely family, but from the same turning and all. What more could a mother ask for?’

  ‘And what a great time we’re going to have,’ beamed Nora, ‘with all the planning for the wedding with Lizzie and Peg. Sure, won’t it be just great?’

  Katie nodded in enthusiastic agreement. ‘Just think of Lizzie’s lovely fair hair under a veil, Mum. She’ll look a right picture walking up that aisle.’

  Nora sighed rapturously at the thought of it. ‘And won’t the procession next month be good practice for the boys being pageboys at the wedding? Now we’ll have two opportunities to get them all done up in little white satin suits.’

  Michael and Timmy’s giggles turned to wide-eyed expressions of alarm as the double horror presented itself. Not only were they going to be humiliated at the annual Catholic Parade, but now they were expected to make idiots of themselves at their big brother’s wedding.

  ‘Pageboys?’ Michael breathed, as though he were repeating the name of the very devil himself. ‘Little white satin suits?’

  Nora grabbed Timmy’s chubby face between her hands. ‘Aw glory, won’t I be proud of yers!’

  Stephen grimaced and rolled his eyes supportively at the boys.

  ‘And I know it’s not for a while yet,’ said Danny, beginning to enjoy himself, ‘but I was hoping you’d think about being me best man, Sean.’

  Sean, for all his sulky, adolescent bravado, couldn’t hide his delight at being treated in such an adult way. He stood up and grabbed his brother by the hand. ‘Good luck to yer, Dan,’ he said, pumping his arm up and down, and slapping him across the shoulder. ‘I’d be proud to stand next to yer.’ Then he began laughing. ‘But don’t yer reckon yer’d better go over and ask Lizzie before them pair of little ’uns wind up telling her before yer’ve had the chance?’

  Danny nodded, hesitated for a moment, then said quietly, ‘I’m glad yer all happy for me. Ta.’ He scratched his head shyly and added with a soppy grin, ‘I’d better go and do as you say, Sean. I mean, it wouldn’t do to keep no secrets from Liz, now would it?’

  Molly waited until Danny had disappeared into the passage, then she stood up from the table and said stiffly, ‘You lot finished with all this? I’ll start clearing up, shall I?’

  After the shock and sadness of Bert’s sudden death, the engagement of Danny Mehan and Liz Watts was such a welcome event that it was all anyone could talk about all the rest of that day, all the next day, and even in whispers during Mass. It even eclipsed the appearance of Irene Lane paying her last respects at the funeral as the most popular topic for the gossips to chew over. Everyone seemed delighted – or at least nosy regarding the arrangements – at the prospect of the wedding. Everyone, that is, except Molly. She had been unusually quiet since Danny had made his announcement.

  ‘I’m going up,’ she suddenly announced when she had helped her mum and nanna clear away after the Sunday tea, which Liz and her mum and dad had shared with them in celebration of the engagement.

  ‘Not going out on a fine evening like this, Moll?’ Katie asked her, as she folded the table cloth that had been brought out especially. She looked over her shoulder and smiled. ‘I thought you had a regular appointment of a Sunday. Didn’t you, Mum?’

  Nora chuckled. ‘I did.’ She paused and looked slyly at her granddaughter. ‘D’yer know what’d be a wonderful thing?’ she began slowly. ‘A real dream come true for yer old nanna? I’ll tell yers. If the family was blessed with a double wedding.’

  Wide-eyed, Molly stared in alarm at her nanna: she couldn’t give her away, she couldn’t.

  ‘But yer’ll have to get yerself a nice young man first if I’m to have me wish, won’t you, darling?’ added Nora with a wink.

  ‘Just leave me alone, can’t yer?’ Molly shouted, and ran from the room.

  The next morning, as the girls made their way to work, Liz was so excited that she didn’t seem to notice that while she chattered away nineteen to the dozen about herself and Danny, Molly was walking along beside her in stony-faced silence. It was only when they came to the doors of the factory that Molly actually spoke.

  ‘I ain’t going in,’ Molly said abruptly.

  ‘I know it’s Monday and the sun’s shining, Moll, but we ain’t ladies of leisure.’

  Molly began walking away. ‘There’s something I’ve gotta do,’ she said, her steps becoming faster. ‘Be a mate and tell ’em I’m ill.’

  Liz stood there, stunned, watching her friend sprint off along the road.

  By the time Molly reached Simon’s uncle’s printing works, in a narrow side turning off Cable Street, she could barely breathe. She had always been a good runner but it wasn’t so much the exertion as the panic she was feeling that was making her gasp for breath.

  With one hand pressed to her chest to steady herself, she patted her hair tidy with the other, and then climbed the steep flight of stone steps to the front door.

  She paused, closed her eyes, crossed herself and then pulled the door firmly open. With a smile set on her lips she went up to the little glass window behind which sat a stern-faced, grey-haired elderly man, writing in a big leather-covered ledger.

  ‘Good morning,’ she said, hoping that her quaking voice wouldn’t give her away. ‘I’ve come over from Terson’s Teas. It’s about the order. I’m to speak to Simon Blomstein.’

  Without looking up from his ledger, the elderly man shouted, ‘Simon. Out here.’

  As she waited for Simon to appear, Molly felt so nervous that she was convinced she was going to faint. Then, quite suddenly, there he was, peering over the elderly man’s shoulder, a look of bewilderment shadowing his dark, handsome face as he realised who it was he had been called out to see.

  ‘I know what this is about, Uncle David,’ Simon said, frantically signalling with his eyes for Molly to go outside – to go anywhere that was out of sight of his uncle.

  ‘It had better not be any trouble, Simon,’ David grunted in reply, still concentrating on his ledger.

  ‘No, it’s nothing,’ said Simon, slipping past his uncle’s chair and reaching for the door handle. ‘I won’t disturb you; I’ll go out there and see her.’

  As Simon closed the door silently behind him, David carried on with his writing.

  On the other side of the door, Simon hurriedly ushered Molly outside, back down the steep stone steps, and round the corner into a narrow alleyway that ran alongside the printing works.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked, his eyes frantically searching her face for clues. ‘Why didn’t y
ou meet me yesterday?’

  Now she was actually facing him, Molly wasn’t sure how she was going to explain. She dropped her chin and stood there, staring down at her feet, feeling chilled to the bone even though it was a bright sunny morning.

  ‘You’re shivering. Are you ill? Is that what you’re going to tell me?’

  She looked up at him and shook her head. Tears fell on to her cheeks. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t turn up yesterday, but it’s Danny and Liz. Danny’s going on about wanting to know who I’m seeing and now he’s gone and got engaged to Liz and she knows all about yer. They ain’t gonna have any secrets, and I’m scared she’s gonna give us away. And me nanna’s going on about me having to get a young man, so’s I can get married. Yer uncle’d go barmy . . .’ She sniffed loudly. ‘I’m sorry, Simon. I can’t see yer no more.’

  ‘No, don’t say that. It doesn’t matter if Liz tells your brother, does it?’

  ‘You don’t know what he’s been like lately. He’s been mixed up with these blokes.’ She wiped her tears away with the back of her hand. ‘I don’t think he is now, but I still don’t think he’d want me seeing yer, not if he knew you was . . .’ She ran her hand distractedly through her hair. ‘Look, I just know he wouldn’t, all right.’

  Simon took out his handkerchief and handed it to Molly. She took it without a word. ‘Molly, I want to see you, and I know you feel the same. It’ll be all right, I know it will. We’ll find a way.’

  Molly gave a shuddering, self-pitying sob and Simon reached out to touch her but, at the sound of voices coming from a window high above their heads, he pulled away again.

  ‘See,’ she sniffed. ‘This is what it’d always be like. We’d be hiding all the time like criminals.’

  ‘Molly, I’ve got to go oh seeing you.’

  ‘But yer not Catholic, Simon.’

  ‘And you’re not Jewish.’ He tried to smile. ‘Anyway what’s happened to the girl who said that the worst thing she could think of was being bored?’

  ‘I’ve grown up since then,’ she said, her voice barely audible. ‘I ain’t a little kid playing games no more.’

  ‘Nor am I. This is the most grown-up thing I’ve ever said to anyone.’ He reached out and took her in his arms. ‘Molly Katherine Mehan,’ he breathed into her ear, ‘I love you. And no one, not your brother, not your grandmother, not my uncle, not anyone, is going to take you away from me.’

  13

  ON A GLORIOUS Sunday morning at the beginning of July, nearly a month after Danny and Liz had announced their engagement, a topic other than The Wedding was occupying the residents of Plumley Street: the annual Catholic Procession from the Church of Saint Mary and Saint Joseph.

  Katie, Nora and Molly, like many other women in that part of Poplar, had been up since first light preparing their houses, making sure that they were clean both inside and out, fit and in readiness for the shrines they had been getting ready to set beside their street doors.

  Katie was giving her inside windows a final polish before rehanging the freshly washed lace curtains, while Molly was energetically scrubbing the pavement with a wet, long-handled broom, and Nora was engrossed in washing her street doorstep before she gave it a thorough whitening – and woe betide anyone stupid enough to put even the sight of a foot within half a yard of her efforts, she threatened.

  Nora stood up. ‘Glad to see yer with the colour back in yer cheeks, Molly love,’ she said, handing her granddaughter the bucket so she could empty the dirty water into the gutter for her. ‘Sorted out the problems yer was having with this feller o’ your’n then, I suppose?’

  Molly’s mouth fell open. She couldn’t believe that her nanna knew about her trying to give up Simon – nor that she could be that indiscreet. As she looked round in hasty alarm to see if her mum had overheard her through the window, Molly spilt the bucket, completely soaking her dress and legs with the mucky water that was meant to have gone down the drain. ‘Now look what yer’ve made me do, Nan,’ she wailed.

  ‘I knew I was right.’ Nora smiled triumphantly, ignoring the state of her granddaughter’s dress. ‘Yer can’t fool yer old nanna.’

  ‘Nanna, please, don’t. Mum’ll hear yer.’ She lowered her eyes. ‘And yer know what she’d say if she knew about him being . . . you know.’

  Nora took the empty bucket from Molly and whispered loudly, ‘So, it’s the Jewish feller still, is it? I did wonder when yer never went out the other Sunday.’

  Molly flashed an anxious look towards her mother, who was frowning at them from the other side of the windowpanes. ‘Please, Nanna, don’t do this.’

  Nora bent forward, leaning close to her granddaughter. ‘I’ve said it often enough to yer, but I really would like to meet him one day. And I could help yer get round yer mother. You know me, I’ll be able to talk her into taking a liking to him before she knows what’s hit her. He could be one of them Lascar fellers off the ships and she’d still love him by the time I’ve finished with her.’

  Molly was still standing there dripping, too flabbergasted to know even how to begin answering her nanna, when Katie emerged from the gloom of the passageway. ‘What’s going on out here?’ she demanded. ‘Look at yer, yer wringing wet, yer daft mare.’

  ‘It’s nothing, Mum. Is it, Nan?’ Molly said, looking pointedly at Nora. ‘Just me being clumsy, that’s all.’

  Nora shook her head at Molly and tutted. That’s right, Katie,’ she sighed, ‘it was nothing. Just this leggy great daughter of yours being clumsy.’ She picked up her bucket and then turned to face Katie. ‘Pat changed his mind yet, has he?’

  ‘No. It’s no good. He won’t budge.’ Katie glanced across the street to see if Phoebe or Sooky were out earwigging. But she was safe; unusually for that neighbourhood, neither of the two women’s families were Catholic, so they had no reason to be up so early on a Sunday morning. ‘You all reckon I’m the stubborn one,’ she went on. ‘Well, I’m telling yer, I reckon Pat could give me lessons. He’s all right, ain’t he, saying he’s too busy to march with us, but he can find time to watch Father Hopkins bless our shrine. I know what’s really up with him: he reckons this is all women’s business.’

  Pat appeared in the passageway behind her. ‘I don’t think that, Katie, and I never said it neither, and well you know it. What I actually said was that I had me own business to attend to – important business – so don’t go telling lies, all right?’

  Katie stepped out on to the pavement and turned to face him. ‘So what exactly is this business that’s more important than the Procession then?’ Katie stuck her fists into her waist and stared at him, challenging him to answer that if he could.

  ‘If yer really interested, I’ll tell yer,’ he answered, equally forcefully. ‘I’ve got some of the blokes from work coming round this afternoon for a meeting, like. We wanna get things straight about how far we’re gonna go if the guv’nors try pulling any more o’ them strokes what they’ve threatened.’ Pat bashed the side of his fist against the wall. ‘Cutting the rates and taking on non-union men. It ain’t right and we won’t put up with it. But we’ve gotta be in agreement about any action. We can’t let ’em divide us.’ He paused, then looked at Katie. ‘Satisfied?’

  Katie knew Molly was standing there behind her, and she hated having cross words with Pat in front of any of her children, but she had set her heart on his going on the parade with her. ‘You’ve been on the march every other year.’

  Exasperated, Pat threw up his hands. ‘Well, we ain’t been in this much shtook every other year, have we?’

  She lifted her chin defiantly. ‘And yer really think it’ll make any difference what you and a couple of mates decide in our back kitchen, do yer?’

  ‘Look, Kate,’ he said quietly, ‘I know yer disappointed about me not going with yer, but can’t yer keep yer voice down a bit? It can’t be helped. A man’s gotta earn a living to keep his family, and that’s final.’

  Ignoring his appeal to calm down, Katie, her face tight with temp
er, yelled, ‘And you’re doing such a good job of that, ain’t yer? That’s all you can do, ain’t it, rabbit on about rights and unions and Gawd knows what else. All that old bunny really puts shoes on the kids’ feet and food in their bellies, don’t it? Go out the back yard and have a look, go on. I can’t shut that meat safe out there for all the grub yer keep putting in it.’ She jabbed an accusing finger at him. ‘Yer just making excuses, Pat Mehan, that’s what yer doing. Yer just don’t wanna march with me. Why won’t yer admit it?’ Now she was in full flow, Katie wasn’t concerned with whether she was being fair or making sense, nor was she about to let her husband defend himself. She barely paused for breath before continuing, ‘Well, there’s plenty of men round here what will be marching. Men what ain’t scared to be seen with women and kids. Mind you, they know they’re men. They’ve got nothing to worry about. They ain’t pathetic excuses for . . .’ As soon as the words had passed her lips, Katie regretted them; immediately she came to her senses and realised where this could lead them. She held up her hand in a feeble attempt to stop whatever it was she had said from doing any harm, but it was too late, Pat’s face had blanched and his shoulders had dropped.

  ‘So that’s how yer feel is it?’ he said, almost to himself. ‘I thought we’d got over all this.’

  ‘Pat . . .’

  Nora stepped forward and touched her daughter’s arm. ‘Katie,’ she said firmly, ‘that’s enough. No more.’

  Katie shook her away; her hands were trembling. ‘Pat, I never meant . . .’

  Innocently unaware of the drama that was being acted out on the pavement, Timmy and Michael came bouncing out of their nanna’s house, carefully avoiding the newly cleaned step.

  ‘Mum!’ Michael yelled, his voice at full volume even though he was standing right in front of her. ‘Farvee said that Dad ain’t marching. Is it true? Is it?’ He didn’t wait for her to answer. ‘So can we just watch and all? We could stay here with Dad, couldn’t we? We’d be ever so good.’

  It was Pat who answered his son. He spoke slowly as though he was having trouble saying the words. ‘Don’t be so cheeky, Michael. You do as yer mother says. Yer gonna march and that’s the end of it.’